Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s comment for the media on the results of his meeting with Interim President of the Republic of Mali Assimi Goïta, Bamako, February 7, 2023

Question: What did you agree during the talks?
Sergei Lavrov: We discussed everything that affects the interests of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Mali in drafting our development plans in line with interests of our peoples.

We discussed the issues that Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop and I talked about at the news conference: plans for trade, economic and investment activity; ongoing military and military-technical programmes; humanitarian, cultural and education ties, and coordination at the UN and other international organisations.

We are reliably meeting Mali’s needs to ensure its security and defence capability. With our support, the Malian leaders have achieved clear successes in countering terrorism. We will certainly continue this cooperation.

In the United Nations, we will firmly uphold the fundamental principle of the sovereign equality of states and oppose the increasingly frequent attempts to bring back colonialism to the international community.

We have achieved specific results during this visit and we will translate them into action.